{"id":4842,"date":"2011-12-21T22:15:14","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T03:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=4842"},"modified":"2011-12-22T12:13:14","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T17:13:14","slug":"a-boy-and-his-pig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2011\/12\/21\/a-boy-and-his-pig\/","title":{"rendered":"A boy and his pig"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in January, on New Year’s Day, I cooked my first goose<\/a>, and as another holiday season approached, I wanted to whip up some other sort of feast that was just as special, but also one that took me into new culinary territory. I chose suckling pig … the purchasing of which proved to be far more difficult than I’d at first imagined.<\/p>\n

I figured I’d be able to buy one easily\u2014don’t lots of folks serve them around Christmas?\u2014but not a single butcher in my area carried them. And they couldn’t even recommend a local farmer who’d sell me one either. So I ran over to A & H Gourmet and Seafood Market<\/a> in Bethesda\u2014where I couldn’t resist buying those quail<\/a> I told you about last week. I was looking for a 9-12 pound pig, but when I arrived, all they had was one that weighed 17.5 pounds. No big deal, I thought. I figured we’d have no problem eating that much pork. <\/p>\n

But there was a secondary issue I hadn’t considered until after I got the beast home …<\/p>\n

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The frozen suckling pig was 24″ long, as you can see via the yardstick above, and we could easily store it in my basement freezer until I was ready. But I realized that not only is my refrigerator just 18″ wide, my oven is only slightly larger, at 22″ wide!<\/p>\n

So when I moved the pig upstairs last week, I was forced to remove a shelf from our refrigerator so it could spend its week of thawing time vertically …<\/p>\n

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Then came the question of the best way to cook the pig. Luckily, according to the recipe<\/a> sent to me by David Shaw<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Even an idiot can do it. You’d have to be a diabolical madman of unrivaled genius bent on destroying deliciousness in order to ruin a good suckling pig.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whew! I was relieved, because as both an idiot AND a diabolical madman of unrivaled genius, I had been worried.<\/p>\n

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Luckily, once the thawing was complete, the pig became supple, and I was able curl it so it fit in our obviously inferior oven. Though as you can see, I still needed to roast it directly on the rack with cookie sheets and tin foil beneath as opposed to using a roasting pan (a move which the recipe recommended for those of us foolish enough to purchase too large a pig). Here it is before I shifted the rack into the oven …<\/p>\n

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And here it is after …<\/p>\n

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Looks delicious! But looks aren’t everything, so … how did it taste?<\/p>\n

Well, I wanted the full range of flavors, so I served myself a little bit of every cut, starting with what I’m told is the best part of a suckling pig\u2014the cheek. To that, I added some rib meat, some chunks off the back and one of the rear legs … and of course, an ear! And it was all (what else?) delicious and fall-off-the-bone moist. This idiot and diabolical madman had indeed failed to destroy the suckling pig. And there’s plenty of meat left over from our first meal to keep us well-fed until Christmas Eve, when we’ll be dining on a full seven-rib standing rib roast.<\/p>\n

As for our next culinary adventure, I’ve still got my eyes on those squirrels wreaking havoc in the backyard. I want a taste of authentic Brunswick stew!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in January, on New Year’s Day, I cooked my first goose, and as another holiday season approached, I wanted to whip up some other sort of feast that was just as special, but also one that took me into new culinary territory. I chose suckling pig … the purchasing of which proved to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-4842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}